What is for Breakfast?

Italy Part 2 – Napoli

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Madelin

We left Rome by train to travel to Napoli. The journey took about 2 hours and soon we were in a different world! Napoli was like a rubbish bin compared to Rome, overflowing bins everywhere with nobody appearing to care. It was strange! We stayed in the Centro Storico at a hotel called Hotel Piazza Bellini which was in the Piazza Bellini, surprise surprise. The hotel itself was lovely though the aircon was terrible, so bear that in mind if you are in Napoli in July and it’s 33!

We were absolutely starving after checking into our hotel and asked for a pizza recommendation. Sorbillo it was. Only, once we got there we found a queue of about 50 people. We gave up on that idea. If Napoli is the best pizza in the world then surely any place was going to be good, right? Anyway, after walking a few metres down the street we stumbled upon another Sorbillo, but this time just a takeaway and super casual dine in place, with just water and beer as the only beverages. Fine by us!

I got the margarita with fresh mozzarella

and Adam got the same but with prosciutto as well.

Holy moly, these pizzas were out of this world. Easily the best pizza we’ve ever eaten!

Amazing!

The streets of the Centro Storico.

Rubbish!

Espresso freddo – icy sweet espresso from our local coffee place.

Graffiti – pretty common everywhere.

Ruins

Loved the courtyard and tiles in our hotel!

We were only in Napoli overnight and in the early evening we walked down to the waterfront via the main street.

Can you see up to the mountains behind?

Mt Vesuvius from the waterfront.

On the Pier.

Some arancini balls

Scooters everywhere!

Hot Pizza bread, mmmmmm.

Lovely salad. Must recreate this one actually! We were obsessed with green Sicilian olives on our trip but can’t find them anywhere in Hong Kong.

Next up is Positano!

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Italy Part 1 – Roma

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Madelin

Okay, here we go! Get ready to drool over both the scenery and the food.

We stayed in a part of Roma called Trastevere, based on my sister Helen’s recommendation. We loved it! I would highly recommend staying this area if you want more of local, young feel. There are heaps of restaurants, bars and coffee places and the Piazza Santa Maria comes alive every evening in summer with families and concerts.

These are some of the little streets around our B & B, the Residenza Santa Maria.

Piazza Santa Maria

It was so hot in Rome. At least 33 degrees every day. So naturally we ate a lot of Gelato! My favourite flavour was Nociaolla which tasted like a Forerro Rocher with caramel sauce through it.

On our first night we went out to a fabulous restaurant called Antico Arco. It was excellent, here is some of what we ate.

This is a cute little cafe we found one day.

I loved the Pantheon.

Art, Italian style.

There were smart cars everywhere – a necessity in the tiny streets of Trastevere.

We went to an awesome local pizza and boutique beer cafe for dinner called Bir and Fud. It was so delicious but like a sauna in there without aircon!

Sampled some local beer.

The menu was all in Italian and the waiters didn’t really speak any English so we ended up with this fried selection. It was pretty yummy!

The pizza was fantastic – this was a gorgonzola one

and I got a simple mozzarella and prosciutto one.

One day we stopped for lunch in a little side street near Piazza Navona. We loved that area too. This was Adam’s favourite meal of the holiday it turned out.

This also turned out to be our favourite mozzarella of the trip! We ate A LOT of buffalo mozzarella!!

The favourite meal – meatballs with white beans

And I had lasagna.

The Colloseum!

Free apertivo at a bar in Trastevere. Came with the Peroni!

Spanish steps

I loved the Trevi Fountain too! So pretty!

Our favourite little bar round the corner from our B&B, Bar S. Calisto.

We queued for AGES in the hot sun to get into the Sistine Chapel.

But it was well worth it of course.

We went to another great bar in Piazza Trilusa with a huge vegetarian apertivo buffet.

The bar had a great vibe and looked across the road to the Tiber and back down to the streets of Trastevere

Apertivo!

The Tiber

For our last dinner in Roma we walked down from the bar to Taverna Trilussa just off Piazza Trilusa. Again the food was incredible, but so rich. This place specialised in cheeses – the done thing was to order a few cheese as an appertiser before your main pasta.

So of course we did that! We got a sampler and our favourite was a local goat cheese.

We both got a pasta but were a little annoyed at ourselves for not checking that they were creamy/cheesy. After the first course of cheese, they were just too rich.

My ravioli, see what I mean? I would have much preferred a tomato based sauce.

Anyway, it was cool that the pasta was served in the pan it was cooked in.

Oh Roma, I miss you. And I’m hungry after looking at all that beautiful food again!!

Hope you enjoyed the photos, next up will be Napoli and Positano.

Posted in Food, Restaurants, Travel | 3 Comments

I’m going to Italy!!!

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Madelin

I’m off to Italy tomorrow night for 2 weeks!

Let’s hope I get my blogging mojo back… and eat some PIZZA!

Photos to come, promise.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Wagyu, Wyndham Street

Posted on May 30, 2010 by Madelin

Hello hello

I haven’t had much to report the last week because Adam has been working all night and all day and we haven’t really been out and I’ve been very lazy and subsisting on goats cheese omelettes .

They are good – had 3 this week, ha ha! With this one I had some simple roasted cherry tomatoes (just put them in a hot oven sprinkled with sea salt and oregano).

Anyway, today he finally got a day off so we went for a nice lunch at Wagyu on Wyndham street. Yum yum! I must go back for brunch, everything looked delicious. We had lunch food which was equally delicious though .

Started with some bread and I had a the slice of sourdough, which I later regretted because it made me too full.

Then we split 2 starters, roasted garlic.

This was nice, but not the best I’ve had, the garlic was a little underdone. I skipped the fries and toast.

We also go seared tuna stick with thai sweet chilli dressing. Yumbos! The tuna was so rare.

Adam got a rare chilli beef salad. It was excellent. The beef was SO tender. Absolutely yum!

I got the papaya salad with prawns and mango. Oh man, I was in heaven! I am on such a papaya salad kick lately. Luckily it’s on the menu everywhere here. It’s so refreshing and tasty and I love the combination of lime and crunchy peanuts. So good!

The prawns were enormous.

Fun lunch!

I’m cooking a yummy beef stew in my tagine for dinner so I’ll report back. We are catching up on 2 missed seasons of Lost – yip yip!

Posted in Food, Restaurants | Tagged beef, prawns, salad, tuna | 1 Comment

Chiuchow Garden, Jardine House

Posted on May 23, 2010 by Madelin

Adam is still working, blah!

We were supposed to go for brunch with friends today but both the guys had to work so we’ve postponed . In any event, I met Adam for a quick lunch at Chiuchow Garden for some Sunday dim sum, yum yum!

We started with Jasmine tea – loved the warmer. I need to get one of these contraptions.

I had Diet Coke as always at dim sum.

This came to the table when we sat down. It seemed to be pickled cucumber and tofu. Twas nice.

At Chiuchow you place your orders on a menu sheet (not trolleys like my fave City Hall). Here’s what we got:

Seasonal greens with wolfberries

No idea what this was, but it was nice enough. The wolfberries had no flavour though, nor did the broth but the greens were ok.

Prawn dumplings of course

We went to town with the flour rolls (my faves)!

Prawn flour rolls

BBQ pork flour rolls

These flour rolls were ENORMOUS! Honestly they were double the size of any I’ve ever had.

We also got some Char Siu pork as well. Just because. It was delicious of course.

And vegetable dumplings. They were very good too.

I had some Yomama (with mango again) afterwards to cleanse the palate.

Holy guacamole that food kept me full all day. All I’ve eaten since then is 2 crackers and some hummos (plus a glass of wine) despite a hard gym workout and some 30 Day Shred (level 1). Must be the flour rolls, they were so starchy, gluggy and delish but they stick to your ribs!

Oh, I’ve also eaten a few cherries. The cherries are so good at the moment!

So my race went pretty well yesterday! It was so incredibly hot, I’ve never run a race in heat like that and to be honest, it was challenging. At the end the first thing they handed you as you crossed the line was a chamois like what you dry off your car with! I couldn’t help but laugh. Oh, Hong Kong humidity! I can do 5km in my sleep but the trio of heat, no water stations and no distance markers made the race quite the challenge. I was happy enough with my time (around 27 minutes, 20 seconds short of a PR) but it there had been a distance marker I probably would have cranked it for the last km or 500m at least. Oh well, it was really fun to race again .

Posted in Exercise, Food, Restaurants | Tagged cherries, Dim Sum, Wine | 1 Comment

Frites, Pottinger Street and Roka, Pacific Place

Posted on May 22, 2010 by Madelin

Hello!

Some fun dinners this week . Thursday night we met up with friend at Frites on Pottinger Street for drinks and dinner. It’s a long weekend here in Hong Kong for Buddha’s birthday – thanks Buddha – so Thursday was a pretty big night in Central. Lots of people were out and about and Whyndam St and LKF were buzzing!

Frites is a Belgian beer cafe style restaurant. It has lovely high ceilings and long wood tables – a really nice relaxed yet stylish vibe! They have a huge selection of mussels on the menu so of course I indulged, since I love mussels. I chose a 1/2 kilo of the Mariniere which was white wine and celery. It was salty and delicious.

It came with rye bread and frites (skipped them).

We also got a rocket and parmesan salad for the table.

Unfortunately Adam is working pretty much the whole weekend. Boo. So I’ve been doing what any self respecting girl would do – shopping up a storm! You like my new green dress? Thankyou Zara.

He was able to get away for lunch and dinner though so we made the most of it. We hit up Dressed Salads and I got a prawn salad with romaine, capsicum, corn, beets, jalapenos and balsamic.

And Yomama for dessert. Mmmmmmmmmmm. With mango!

For dinner I met Adam in Pacific Place, LATE – we didn’t meet till after 9pm. Surprisingly I didn’t get that hungry though. We tried out a Japanese robata style restaurant called Roka. OMG it was so yummy!

I also loved the interior and the service was really good. How cool are these wobbly glasses?

We decided to skip any sushi/sashimi and just head straight for the grill items. We had asparagus. Perfection!

Grilled Tofu – so so so yummy. Better than agedashi – it had ginger and spring onion on top that made the flavour incredible.

Steaming hot Miso

Rib eye – woweee this was delicious!

Chicken and leek baby skewers

Miso cod

Again this had ginger on top (the red bits) and it made it so tasty – with a miso hollandaise. YUM! Nobu eat your heart out .

Twas dark in there. I really need some dark lighting photography lessons… Helen?

Cool wine rack!

After dinner we went up to the Upper House bar for a drink. You can’t see much but its super swanky and has the best view! They also have these addictive prawn cracker chip things. Very evil!

Then we went home via 208 for another glass of vino. Fun evening!

So I am running a 5km race this afternoon up at Bowen Road. I’m really excited because I haven’t raced since January and I miss it.

Have a lovely Saturday .

Posted in Food, Restaurants | Tagged Japanese, salad, Wine, Yoghurt | 4 Comments

Time Out Hong Kong Winewalk

Posted on May 16, 2010 by Madelin

Yesterday we headed into Wanchai for the Time Out Winewalk! It was such a fun day . We registered at Three Pacific Place and were given a welcome pack with our “passport” and some vouchers, a bottle of water and a wine glass!

We had to get a stamp from each of the venues in order to go in the draw for the prizes. I hope I win!

Here are some photos of our day – some of the venues were pretty crap, others were awesome and very generous.

We started at Cine Citta – they offered 2 tastes plus refills and food!

Me with our friend Cynthia who joined us for the day.

Classified also offered 2 tastes and yummy food! Love Classified, but I reckon our Sheung Wan outlet is better cause it’s bigger and has more CHEESE!!!!

Loved this light fitting.

Caprese bites – delish.

Star street was packed with drinkers.

Cepage tasting area was up on their rooftop garden. They only offered taste of red or white and no food. Not surprisingly people didn’t hang around there very long!

Wasn’t a fan of this white wine at all .

The rooftop is pretty cool though!

At Naturo we sampled some Yak cheese. Ever had it? It’s yummy!

And we had some organic wine.

I loved these chairs on Sun Street.

Some awesome little shops along there. It reminds me of Greenwich Village in New York.

I think my favourite stop was at Castello del Vino where there were all sorts of cheese to try and I had some Prosecco. Love Prosecco!

Such a fun store – I will be back

Holy cheese!

Lots to sample.

More cheese.

This lady was getting really into the Parmiaganna Reggianno!

We headed onto the last leg of the walk and stopped off at the Margaret River Wine Shop.

I tasted a delicious red wine at the Margaret River Wine Shop – it was a Shiraz by Farmers Leap from South Australia. SOOOOOO good! Aussie wine really is the best, but I’m biased I know.

This place was a bit of a let down and I ditched my sample of Nappa Sav Blanc.

In the queue

I liked this label!

Having a rest once we reached The Pawn (the end destination).

Mez, they have your lights!!

After a few hours at The Pawn met up with most of our friends and then headed to Amelia’s building rooftop. Such an awesome view. Adam and I decided we want to live in Wanchai next for sure.

View straight out to the Peak and Bowen Road!

And the Harbour.

Somebody lent Zoe some Whiskey…

And we got some Pizzas to share for dinner from Pizza Express.

Such a fun day!!!

I love that Hong Kong has these kinds of events! In fact, the whole of May is Wine month here and there are a bunch more events like this – including another one round our area in a couple of weeks. Yip yip!

Posted in Food, Restaurants | Tagged cheese, Pizza, Wine | 7 Comments

Let’s catch up

Posted on May 15, 2010 by Madelin

Hiya

So sorry I have been MIA for nearly a week. I have been in a bit of a funk this week with some things and my toe and on top of that have been super busy and out and about a lot. But I’m back, and promise to be more regular in my posting from now on. I’m still just trying to figure out how I’m going to fit things into my schedule now that I’m working.

So, we’ve done some fun stuff in the last week! It’s heating up here in Hong Kong and I think the last of the cool weather has gone. Humidity here we come. I think by the time my sisters arrive in June (yip yip!) it’s going to be sweltering! I must remind them to pack me a few more bottles of my fake tanner !

Saturday
Saturday night we went to The Press Room for dinner – it was excellent. I’ve already said I love the French bistro vibe there and the dinner food really was delicious (we’ve only been for brekkie before). Iphone photos sorry, because I have been really stupidly forgetful with my camera lately and left the battery in the charger. Doh.

Adam had oysters

Yuk, but he loved them.

We also split this amazing salad! Anyone who can get their hands on fresh figs without blowing their bank account should make this salad asap. It was greens, goats cheese, toasted hazelnuts and figs. Incredible and so simple.

I had fish with a tomato sauce and mussels. The sauce was super flavoursome – I really really loved it. It doesn’t look like anything out of the ordinary really, but it was just seasoned so well that it was a flavour bomb. It was a special on the night I believe.

Adam had the mushroom pasta which he loved.

Sunday

On Sunday it was super hot and pretty sunny, so we headed off for a bit of an adventure. We went to a new beach called South Bay Beach which is between Repulse Bay and Stanley Beach.

It was really pretty! My favourite of the Island’s beaches by far. I think because of all the mountains around.

We wished we had brought our bathers though. Woops.

We had lunch at the South Bay Beach Club – which reminded me a little of Surin Beach in Phuket and Hawaii. It was very chilled with a DJ playing nice beats, cold beers and bottles of Rose.

We had a nice chilled out afternoon!

Heaps of people were swimming.

For lunch we split the dips plate

and a chicken, salad and salsa wrap.

Both were good. The beers and atmosphere were better though . I don’t think the food is really the main game at this place if you know what I mean. Lots of people were drinking amazing looking smoothies though, so might have to try one next time.

Cooking

My cooking this week hasn’t been all that exciting unfortunately, but some highlights included a big batch of Palak Paneer – mmmmmmm my favourite Indian food!

Some prawns I stir fried with Cajun spice mix and served with corn cobs and broccoli. An easy one but a goodie.

I have been eating a ton of pineapple! It is just so good over here – as good as Hawaii!

We’ve been spending a bit of time at our new local bar 208 which we are loving! Thursday night we ended up having a few too many wines with Adam’s work mates and got some delicious pizzas for dinner too. Yumbos!

Iphone picture again, sorry!

Last night we met up with friends at Coast for dinner. I got 2 appetizers for my main. The tuna ceviche (which I’ve had before) and the prawns wrapped in prosciutto.

Both were just ok. The ceviche was much better the last time we had it. Last night it was too sour and citrusy. It needed some sweetness. And the prawns were a bit overcooked, small and had too much prosciutto on them.

Adam had the special of blue eye cod with saffron rice.

It was quite small but tasted nice.

We got Berrygood on the way home because we were a little peckish.

So – my toe is almost better. I haven’t really done much exercise this week and that has probably been a good thing. I worked out Tuesday and Friday nights and will probably go this morning. I got a little pain at the end of my 10 minute run last night though so won’t run again till it’s 100%. I’m pretty sure it’s definitely not broken though.

Today we are going to what should be a really fun event! It is called Winewalk and it is a walk around Wanchai’s funky bars and restaurants with wine tasting and food. Should be fun! It’s sold out too so we’ll either end up pretty boozed and full or starving and sober. I’ll report back .

Ok that was an enormous post, hope you enjoyed the catch up. Have a wonderful weekend!

Posted in Exercise, Food, Restaurants | Tagged corn, Fish, indian, prawns, Sandwich, Wine | 1 Comment

Cicada, Shelley Street

Posted on May 8, 2010 by Madelin

Today we had lunch at Cicada on the escalator. I’ve been eying off their menu for yonks and today it was convenient to go! It is a mix of Thai and Vietnamese style food and they have a lot of small plates for sharing.

I knew exactly what I wanted though – the papaya salad with prawns! Yum!

We also got these salmon and tuna ceviche rice paper rolls which were excellent.

My salad which was super delicious and healthy.

Adam got the same thing with shredded chicken instead of prawns.

Yumbos! The sauce was so yummy. Really vinegary and I think it had tamarind paste and lots of lime in it. So good.

So, I went to the doctor today to get the results of my medical that I had for work. Turns out I have high cholesterol. The doctor told me to exercise more and not to eat so much meat then pretty much slammed the door in my face as I was telling her that I exercise a lot and don’t eat very much meat. Gee thanks! Needless to say I will not be going back to her, what a lovely bedside manner…

Anyway, I think its hereditary as my mum and gran both have high cholesterol. I’ll have to do some research on how to reduce it I guess and then I’ll get another test to see if its gone down.

Also, on the way to lunch I completely stacked it on the stairs near the escalator and I think I have broken my right toe . I can hardly walk and am icing it now. I really hope I haven’t because I just signed up for a race! It’s in 2 weeks and is just a 5km on Bowen Road – pretty excited! Hopefully I have just stubbed it really badly.

I had some fro-yo to cheer myself up.

The pool in our building has opened now so we might just pop down for a swim .

We are going to The Press Room for dinner tonight. Yip yip!

Posted in Food, Restaurants | Tagged salad, thai, vietnamese, Yoghurt | 10 Comments

208 Duecento Otto, Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Madelin

Don’t you just love it when you have amazing service! Puts a smile on my face for days! Tonight was such the experience – I was at the supermarket picking up some stuff for dinner when Adam met up with me and suggested we go check out the new bar on our street.

Of course I said yes, so up we went with our shopping to have a beverage before making our Tom Yum Soup. The new bar in question is 208 Duecento Otto and we’ve been eagerly watching its construction/renovation for weeks now! Sheung Wan doesn’t exactly have any stylish watering holes so one must walk up to Classified, The Press Room or Soho if one wants a beer or nice glass of vino. Sure, its only a 10 minute walk but still, there is nothing like a good wine bar 2 minutes walk from your apartment, right?

So we got up to 208 and unfortunately it was only open for a private function for the owner. Bummer.

Well, we were in luck because Barry the manager/project manager for the restaurant group, who we got chatting to, said since we were locals it was cool if we sat down and had a glass of wine. Super!

Well, 1 glass of delicious white Italian wine turned into 3, a wood fired pizza and an antipasto plate each, all complimentary! How lucky are we?

Only problem was I didn’t pack my camera today and since I was on my way home from work… well, yeah the pictures are Iphone CRAP and I’m SORRY! But we’ll be back so there will be better shots to come I promise .

Pizza and wine – up the road. This could be dangerous!

Broccoli and sausage, very tasty.

Barry was telling us the owner of 208 flew in a man from Naples to design and build a custom pizza oven. Well that oven does a superb job!

The main downstairs area is a bar with pizzas and antipasto and upstairs is an Italian restaurant. Here is a video Adam and I found showing the construction of the pizza oven at 208!

Barry also told us the chef Vinny Louria is coming from Mario Batali’s New York restaurant Babbo. So excited to sample his food! And for Rosie – the fitout was done by Autoban, a Turkish design group that won the 2006 Wallpaper Best Restaurant design – know them?

208 is opening next Tuesday 11 May .

And FYI Mez and Rosie, it’s right across the road from that hotel I recommended – Central Park Hotel .

Posted in Food, Restaurants | Tagged italian, Pizza, Wine | 7 Comments